Welcome to the March Freebie Challenge: "March Madness Mix-Up"

Since there seems to be a recurring theme of madness for March (mad as a March hare; NCAA March Madness basketball playoffs; assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March); we'll continue the theme here.
I am going to take a page from the RRRR (Random Runtime Roulette Renders) contest. Your goal is to randomly pick three items from your runtime and include them in your render. Before starting your render you must post your randomly picked items and any paid for items picked will count toward your paid for limit.
Ideas on how to pick content can be found in the first post here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/15285/

The Rules:

1. A minimum of 8 freebies.

2. A maximum of 3 purchased items. (you may list the Reality plugin as one of them)

3. Base figures (V4/M4?K4,V3/M3 and Genesis) don’t count as a purchased item or a freebie and may be used as needed.

3b.. V4/M4/K4 Morphs++ and V3/M3 Head & Body Morphs will not count toward a purchased item. All other morph packages will be counted.

4. No postwork. This rule WILL NOT CHANGE SO DON’T ASK! (except for signatures and borders)

5. Bryce, Hexagon, Blender, Poser and Daz are allowed for the contest. Items given free with these Apps will not count towards the freebie count as they will not be available for all users, but can be used as non countable items. Poser figures need clarification as they can normally only be used within poser and are essentially paid for items as Poser is a paid for app.

6. For an item to be considered free it must be offered as a freebie for the whole of the month. All permanent Daz freebies will be allowed at any time.

6b. DAZ3D weekly freebies will count as free during the month they are released. The weekly freebie released during the last week of the previous month will also count as free for the month.

7. All links to freebies must work, and all freebies must be clearly and completely seen, not obstructed or hidden in any way from clear total viewing, no water reflections, or reflections that bend the freebie or distort it from it’s original form allowed without the freebie being seen above or outside the reflection itself as a stand alone, the freebie must be seen without having to enlarge the render to see it in any way, no items put against something the same color or texture making it blend into the other item. You may not link to items that specifically ask you not to link to them.

8. This is a family challenge for all ages, so there will be NO NUDIY OR SEXUALLY EXPLICIT OR EXTREMELY VIOLENT SITUATIONS ALLOWED WHATSOEVER.

9. All the rules above will be enforced. If you do not understand any of them, please pm me or ask in the current challenge thread.DO NOT ASK FOR SPECIAL FAVORS AS THIS CONTEST MUST BE FAIR FOR ALL. Rich or poor, new computers or old, all will be treated equally. Newbies will be given as much help as we can offer.

10. You may enter as many renders as you like each month, as long as they qualify.

11. You may post any renders you like without freebies or paid fors, these will be called NAEs, so please list them as such. They will not be considered entries.

12. Having fun is a must. Play hard, but please do not hurt anyone. The Daz team and/or MOD has the right to edit or remove any inappropriate comments they wish to. This will not change.

13. If you are going to be a judge, you must come into the challenge throughout the month, at least once every day or two. You can not just disappear. If you can not be here, do not ask to be a judge. You must also make comments on the entries as to give help to any newbies. You will be required to choose three winners and two honorable mentions for the month you judge. All judges chosen are allowed to enter the contest, but they may not vote for themselves.

14. Mini contests, within the main contest, are allowed at any time the host chooses. Prizes for them will be given separately from the main challenge.

15. You may use as many freebies from “community” sites. These are sites that feature free items from various arthors, like Sharecg.com or Renderosity.com. You may NOT repeat a link to a third party site “exactly” once used in the entry, You can, however, use the same thirs party site link as long as it goes to a different page. Most-digital-creations.com is an example of this.

The Prizes

DAZ3D Sponsored Prizes

1st place will receive a $15.00 Gift Certificate (GC) to the Daz store.
2nd place will receive a $12.00 Gift Certificate (GC) to the Daz store.
3rd place will receive an $8.00 Gift Certificate (GC) to the Daz store.

Comments

this sounds like a great take on the theme B, If I can muster up .... well maybe an idea... I might attempt to do something too.
I am NOT offering to judge this month. I've been judging on and off for most of the months. I think I finally got burned out guys. Now some of you are going to have to step up and do some judging. Some newbies would be nice, lets see how many of you can take on the challenge. thanks

9. All the rules above will be enforced. If you do not understand any of them, please pm me or ask in the current challenge thread.DO NOT ASK FOR SPECIAL FAVORS AS THIS CONTEST MUST BE FAIR FOR ALL. Rich or poor, new computers or old, all will be treated equally. Newbies will be given as much help as we can offer.
.

Since the base figures of M3, V3, A3 and H3 are still available as one download from CDnet, and you've allowed morphs for M3 & V3, will the morphs for A3 & H3 still be a no count item?

What about the Mech Girl for A3 pack? Is it still a 'free item'? Since DAZ has made it a 'free with purchase item'?

How about Platinum Club freebies? I can't use them because I'm not a PC member.

As for postwork, well... We have beaten that poor horse to death so you'll get no argument from me. :) :)

Gerry

Since H3 came with all his morphs built in and that package is free at Cnet; that can go toward your freebie count.
A3 morphs are a paid for item
All items at DAZ3D items that are "free with purchase" can count toward your freebie total. The weekly freebies are still being counted.
The monthly PC freebie does not count as a freebie.

I know there has been a lot of questions about the Available DAZ freebies, current, past, future. If you are not a PCM you won't get a freebie from DAZ. Make a purchase, get the freebie. There have been many adjustments in reguards to the DAZ freebie section. All in all, still intact though. I have one simple ruling on DAZ freebies..."if you can provide a working legal link to the free item, and use it in your render, to be clearly seen by all" then it is accepted. Maybe members must be sure never to let these items leak out into the streets...OMG! They're freebies...RUN!

so B, I do have a quick question... with the three items that you select, do they have to be free or can they be paid also. just checking.

The Theme:

Since there seems to be a recurring theme of madness for March (mad as a March hare; NCAA March Madness basketball playoffs; assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March); we'll continue the theme here.
I am going to take a page from the RRRR (Random Runtime Roulette Renders) contest. Your goal is to randomly pick three items from your runtime and include them in your render. Before starting your render you must post your randomly picked items and any paid for items picked will count toward your paid for limit.
Ideas on how to pick content can be found in the first post here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/15285/

Ok, well, since I have an SQL database of all the stuff in my runtime (accountant, what can I say!) I went ahead and did a random number generation (between 1 and the number of items in my database) and looked up the record number matching my random number.

Getting back to this month's topic - Does anyone have any suggestions on how to build the list of what one has installed?

I have lists of what I've downloaded (for pay and for free) from Daz3D, Rendo, RDNA, Fantasies Realm, and Poser World, but that's far from everything in my runtime... and not everything that I've downloaded is in my runtime.

Getting back to this month's topic - Does anyone have any suggestions on how to build the list of what one has installed?

I have lists of what I've downloaded (for pay and for free) from Daz3D, Rendo, RDNA, Fantasies Realm, and Poser World, but that's far from everything in my runtime... and not everything that I've downloaded is in my runtime.

You don't have a list of stuff you download from ShareCG?

You might have to manually add the items that aren't on your list. or get screenshot captures of the various folders in your runtime; cave them as an image file and use and OCR program to convert to text file. You will have do subfolders as well; depending on how you have the folders organized.
One you have that done; compile all your lists into one spreadsheet; eliminate any doubles & you should be good to go.

Now a question, as the random pull "The Wrangler" is a texture set with Boundless Journey as "required product", how is this supposed to be handled as it is a random pull. Is "Boundless Journey" automatically added as it is required or should I redraw that? Any other option sounds rather difficult to handle ;-)

Now a question, as the random pull "The Wrangler" is a texture set with Boundless Journey as "required product", how is this supposed to be handled as it is a random pull. Is "Boundless Journey" automatically added as it is required or should I redraw that? Any other option sounds rather difficult to handle ;-)

In the case of drawing a texture set; I will allow the use of the product it is designed for.

The main reason we limit the number of paid for items; is because this is a freebie contest and we don't want the paid for items to overshadow the freebies used. Another reason is to show that freebie content can be just as good quality as paid for content.

Now a question, as the random pull "The Wrangler" is a texture set with Boundless Journey as "required product", how is this supposed to be handled as it is a random pull. Is "Boundless Journey" automatically added as it is required or should I redraw that? Any other option sounds rather difficult to handle ;-)

In the case of drawing a texture set; I will allow the use of the product it is designed for.

The main reason we limit the number of paid for items; is because this is a freebie contest and we don't want the paid for items to overshadow the freebies used. Another reason is to show that freebie content can be just as good quality as paid for content.
Thanks, and I understand that. Now I can continue with my weird freebee random thing ;-)